Major on the Majors with Ken Gee

Major on the Majors with Ken Gee

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome back to the Business Development Podcast. This is episode 22, and on today's episode, we are fortunate enough to have Ken Gee of the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, a little local celebrity, entrepreneur, broadcaster. Quite an amazing man, and we have a great interview for you today. Stay tuned.

Intro: The great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years.

Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal, and we couldn't agree more. This is the The Business Development Podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and broadcasting to the world, you'll get expert business development advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs, and business development reps.

You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business, brought to you by Capital Business Development capitalbd.ca. Let's do it. Welcome to the The Business Development Podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome back to the Business Development Podcast. You were listening to episode 22 and today we have Ken Gee of the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce.

Ken, you're a little bit of a local celebrity and it's absolutely amazing to have you on the show. I've been trying to have you for a little while. I know there's been a kind of a bit of back and forth to make that happen, and I just wanna say thank you so much for coming. A little bit about Ken. Ken was born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta.

A strong work ethic was installed in Ken as a child while working in the family business. Ken is a serial entrepreneur and began public speaking in elementary school. Many steps along the way led him to a career in broadcasting and announcing starting at age 14. Ken worked as a radio, TV news and sports broadcaster for many years, and learned skills which he would eventually leverage into a successful career in corporate sales.

A strong believer in personal development and association. Ken used those skills to found a commercial moving and logistics company that developed into one of Edmonton's most prominent service providers for over 16 years. He continued to pursue his lifelong passion in horse racing and landed his dream job as a horse racing announcer, which he continues to work at as his secondary career.

During the Covid lockdown, Ken was presented with the opportunity to join the Edmonton Chamber in a support role, which has grown into a more significant role as the head of member relations for our 1800 plus strong membership. Ken has been blessed to have lived many experiences, which may seem unreal to some, and has also experienced the agony of disappointment.

However, Ken approach his life with tenacity and does not let the fear of failure stop him from trying his hardest at anything he sets his mind to. Ken, it's a pleasure to have you on the Business Development Podcast. How are you doing today?

Ken Gee: It's a pleasure to be here. I'm doing great. Boy, what a buildup.

I hope I live up to the billing.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. I always, I, I say this every time, but whenever I read somebody's bio, I'm like, man, I gotta catch up. That is impressive.

Ken Gee: Well, I have a few years on you too, so don't forget that.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. But it, you know what I mean? I just, just, just going over like the flow and, and one thing I wanna kind of touch on too is that one thing that I've noticed with a lot of the entrepreneur interviews that I've had, most people start entrepreneurship quite young, and you as well.

Can you tell me a little bit about your family's business?

Ken Gee: Yeah. Well, you know, I, I think it was it wasn't so much that as a kid I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but, you know I grew up with that immigrant mentality, right? My folks immigrated from southern China, actually I'm the fourth generation to be here in Canada.

So very fortunate to be here that my folks picked, picked Edmonton to be the place that they wanted to raise their family. But, you know, when they have a family business everybody's involved, especially, you know, when you're running a corner store, right? That's what they did when they first came to Canada.

So I just remember as a kid when I was tall enough to stand on a a pop bottle box and reach the cash register, I was in there helping in the business. Yeah. So I have three siblings and we all were expected to help at the family business. You know, mom and dad worked from nine to 10 at night every day.

Yeah. And so there was a lot of help needed in that business, and that was just the way we grew up. That's what we knew.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, I can imagine like your understanding of business must be a little different, you know what I mean? Like obviously I grew up as a kid. My, both my parents worked, they worked a lot.

So like as a kid, I feel like I saw my parents like quite little, although I know that's not true. I saw them a lot. But the reality is it felt like they were always working, but they didn't own, well, I guess my dad owned his own little maintenance firm, but he was essentially just an independent contractor.

And my mom, she worked in healthcare and so I, I would see them kind of from time to time. But like what was it like growing up in a family with like an understanding of business? Like you must have had a pretty good understanding of business as a little kid.

Ken Gee: Oh, absolutely. I think you know, the, the biggest things that my folks instilled in me were work ethic.

I mean you did what it took to, to make the business go, to make it run. And also you majored on the majors, right? No time for, you know, worrying about the small stuff because the goal was you are in business, you've gotta make money, you gotta pay your bills. So you know, focusing on the bigger picture and what needed to be done, I think really is what has what's been learned from my experience from a young child growing up being an entrepreneur myself, is that when you want to be in business, you need to be focused and you need to know why you're doing things.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. You bet. Can you tell me like a little bit, Your public speaking career, like, you know, for people who don't know you, Ken, you're a bit of a local celebrity. You really are. And I know you'd never admit to it, but you totally are. And you kind of over the past little bit, you know, I mean, we met when I joined the Chamber, like, frankly I think it was like my second renewal and you, you kind of came on and introduced yourself and we started chatting cuz we both have a, a business development background, so we kind of connected immediately on that front.

But you know, I mean I've seen you now at Coffee of the Chamber. I see you like on socials all the time. You have really, really inserted yourself into the chamber, I guess like part of your career, part of the the job requirement I suppose. But you are, you're just killing it, man. Like, you know what I mean?

I, I watched you do the announcements for coffee with the Chamber. You're always kind of organizing, you're, you're promoting all the local business and you're really appreciated. And, and I just wanna say like, I even, even though that's not like kind of the main thing that this is about, I did just wanna kind of.

Single you out a little bit and say that I really appreciate the work that you're doing, and I think you're doing an excellent job.

Ken Gee: Oh, well, thanks so much for those kind words. I, I've never seen myself as a celebrity. You know, it was really funny. I was speaking with somebody the other day who is in communications professionally, and they were saying that they are an introvert normally, but they know how to flip the switch when they have to speak because that's their job.

And that's kind of sort of where I, where I am with things, and I guess it comes with it when you are in the public eye. But no, I'm just here to serve and I, I really enjoy meeting people. And if that means that I'm out there and people know who I am, then I guess that's great because I, I really do, I'm a pretty gregarious person.

But in terms of public speaking, I mean, it all started, all started in grade one with my teacher, Mrs. Meekins. People say, where, where, where did you get you know, you know, have you spoken before? Like what's your experience cuz oh obviously you were a broadcaster, you can do this. No, actually I got my start when I was in grade one.

I remember Mrs. Meekins coming to me and saying, you know, we need an MC for our school Christmas concert. I know you're in grade one, but would you be able to do that for us? Would you like to do that? And here I am, you know, this little kid thinking, what you want me to speak What? And hey, from from there, the rest is history.

I remember being scared to death as a little kid being asked to speak in front of a group, but, you know that's where I got a taste of it. That's where it all started. And that's what eventually led me to my career in broadcasting was, yeah, I thought I can do this. I think I'd be good at this.

Yeah. So

Kelly Kennedy: did you, did you end up going to school for broadcasting then? Can you tell me a little bit about your broadcasting career?

Ken Gee: Yeah, so excuse me. As a, as a kid growing up you know, I, I was really interested in media you know, and I'd never really considered myself a performer, but I guess I am because you know, public speaking, that's a creative outlet and it's it's performing.

But you know, I, I kind of knew as a kid growing up that I wanted to be a broadcaster. I would watch sporting events, I would watch people on tv just creating the excitement and being able to tell a story in such a way that you would get wrapped up in it. So I remember at a very young age that that was something that I wanted to pursue.

And then my big break came in high school, which is really funny. I remember thinking, wow, one day I would like to go and take a broadcasting program. So let's start off and see what we can do. So, I remember first day of high school there was an announcement saying that they needed a football stadium announcer over at Jasper Place High School. Jasper Place Bowls, what they called it in the day. Yeah. And I remember thinking, this is it, this is what I want to do, and they're even gonna pay to do it. So I remember going to see the PhysEd department in Ted Thresher, who's a very prominent in the wrestling community, was, has gone to a number of the Olympics to be an official.

But I remember going to see him and I said, Mr. Thresher, I'm really interested in his position being the stadium announcer at our football games. He said, really? You have any experience? I'm like, well, I'm a kid. What experience would I have? Yeah. He says, well, okay, let me let me, let me see what what we can do.

And I remember at the end of the day I got a, he called, they called me on the announcements to come in to see him in the office. I said, oh, what's this all about? And he said, okay, Ken, you've got the job. And I was like, what? I got the job. I'm gonna be announcing football games. He says, yep, yep. You're the one.

And I said, well, you know, who else was there that, that came and talked to you about it? He said, well, you were the only one.

Kelly Kennedy: See, you had the balls to do it. That's, you know what I mean? I talk to all, all the time on the podcast, you know, I mean, I'm, I'm always, I'm harping a little bit on our listeners that they have to ask for meetings.

You have to, you have to have the bravery to ask for what you want. And, and the funny thing is, is most of the time, if you, if you have the bravery to do it, I would say like nine times outta 10, you get what you ask for.

Ken Gee: You don't ask, you don't get. You're absolutely right. Yeah. So from there you know, I st I announced football games as a kid in high school and I got paid for it, and it was great.

You know, I, I, you know, in terms of doing part-time jobs in high school, sometimes you have to do some pretty greasy things. But you know, I was really enjoying doing that. And then I, I decided, you know, in grade 12, I better, I better do something formally. So I applied to the Radio and TV arts program and went through that and you know, went through my first year.

It was really exciting, you know, had to decide, did I wanna do tv, did I wanna do radio? Learned a lot about the industry. Met some industry greats who came in to do some instruction for us. And so part way through my second year you know, and those days NAIT did placement programs and I said to my instructors, I said, you know, I really feel like I'm ready.

I, I think I need to go get a job in the industry. And sure enough, they found me the job of a lifetime. Going to Castlegar, BC a town of 5,000 people. I didn't even know where it was. And I, I, I loaded up my little car two weeks before Christmas, and drove off into the mountains. My dad came with me.

I got there and the radio station, I was gonna become the news director at was in the basement of a insurance building.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh, wow.

Ken Gee: I, I thought I was gonna cry when I got down Main Street and found the place. But you know what, it was all about paying my dues. And that's where my broadcasting career started was from a 10,000 Watt AM radio station in the Kootenays in BC

Kelly Kennedy: That's amazing. You know what I, I'm, I'm totally with you. There's .So many people that just wanna get into an industry and just be amazing. And I'm sorry, that's just not how it works. It really isn't how it works. You know, I cut my teeth for many, many years. I actually I actually gave a thank you to one of my old bosses on the last episode because there were a lot of opportunities that I needed to get to where I was at today.

You know what I mean? I didn't just wake up good at business development. I didn't just wake up yesterday and start a business development firm. It took me over a decade to get to a point where I was comfortable taking that leap and, and going out on my own. And, and I had a lot of help on the way and good mentors and people that were willing to sit down and say, Hey Kelly, these are some of the mistakes that I made.

You should maybe try to avoid these things. And, and it's like you need to be able to, like Ken said, you need to be able to cut your teeth. You need to be able to put in your dues and it will pay off. But if you are at the beginning of your career, you know, whether that's an entrepreneur, whether that's in business development or sales, just understand that.

You're going to get better at it. It just takes a little bit of time, but every day that you commit to that, you're getting a little bit better. And then one day you're Ken Gee and you're out here rocking the world.

Ken Gee: Well, you know, I'm, I, I we're the sum of our experiences. Right? So those experiences are maybe the greatness, some of those things that you experience that you're just, you're so proud of.

But, you know, part of those experiences that make us what we are, are also some of the failures that we've had. And I've had lots of failures, and I don't mind saying that because they have contributed to the successes I've had too. Right? And so I think that's really important that we embrace those opportunities as well.

Sometimes we don't want to do the dirty work that get us to the places we want to go because it's not glamorous and it's not, it's scary, right?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and I, I, and just to kind of touch on that too, I feel like consistency, right? Like it took me a long time. I talked about this in a previous episode.

It took me a long time to get consistent. Consistent, I suppose, in a way that I was following kind of a, a set of rules or a set of processes that I utilized on a regular basis. And I found that when I found, when I had like a little bit of consistency in what I was doing and I could develop a little bit of self-discipline, that was when I truly got incredibly effective.

And that takes a little bit of time. It takes some, like some soul searching and a little bit of, am I really doing as good as I could be doing? What else can I be doing? I guess becoming an entrepreneur really flicked that switch in me that I needed to, like, I needed to think this thing through, not once but twice, but three times and make sure that I am putting my all as much as possible.

And now definitely I would say like I'm at a point in my life now where I've never worked harder. But it's never, never been more rewarding either. So.

Ken Gee: That's, you know what, that's some great introspection because I think that self-evaluation is really important. You know, I'm my worst, my own worst critic. The one thing I would add to that though is that to be an entrepreneur as well you need to be intentional besides being consistent, right?

Because you need to be out there doing the things that you need to do for a reason when you own a business.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. Like, I guess one of the things I, I, I'm, I wanna go back to what you were discussing before about being a bit of an introvert. I am also an introvert who had to learn to flick, flick the on switch to become an extrovert because yeah, for a long time, man, picking up the phone scared the crap outta me.

You know, going to, going to an event like Coffee with a Chamber was not something that I could do comfortably and feel, and you know what, like the reality is, I still get a little bit anxious. I still have my moments where I'm in a room like that, where I'm like, oh crap. Like I gotta actually go out, turn the flick, the switch, get into my extrovert mode and meet some new people.

But the funny thing is, is that most of them don't bite. So, so you just gotta, you just gotta find some bravery within yourself. Flick that switch and get out there and say hello.

Ken Gee: And you know, what the besides besides that, like really, who cares? Yeah. You know, I think we, we scare ourselves away from situations because we're worried that we're, you know, we're gonna look dumb or, you know, we're gonna fail at it and it's not gonna be a good look for us.

You know what, those, those moments don't last very long. Well, hopefully they'll last very long. But really people are so wrapped up in themselves and they're important to themselves that, you know, when you make mistakes and things like that, I think they don't. They, they just go, they go by, but they're, like I said earlier, they're part of what make you eventually what you are, right?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely. It, it all builds together and, and like I said, like now I don't get as nervous and I kind of talk about this in the podcast where it's like that repetition of things that make you uncomfortable. You do get better at them over time with that repetition. So you know, even if you're scared today to kind of pick up the phone and make that 15 phone calls you need to be making today or to ask a client for a meeting, every time that you do that, you get better at it and it starts to become easier and easier and easier with that repetition.

Ken Gee: That's funny cuz you sound like such a natural at doing this. I would never, I would never think that you're nervous about doing this, Kelly.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh, totally. I got nervous before this interview. What are you talking about?

Yeah, no, absolutely. No, I, I totally do you know what I totally do. I'm not afraid to admit it. I definitely I fight a little bit of, of performance anxiety, I guess. Or stage fright, I guess. Some, some might call it stage fright as well. Just, you know, getting up in front of people or having meetings or stuff like that.

There's definitely a moment, and it doesn't matter whether it's a lunch meeting for me or an in-person meeting or a speech or something like that. Yeah, I, I definitely do fight it a little bit, but I don't let it hold me back. That's the thing, right? Like some people would experience that and that would be that they step back, I can't do this.

What I've learned is you can do this. You just need to take that step forward. And I imagine, I imagine you even had a moment or two in your, in your speech career, in your broadcasting career where you got a little bit nervous, but you did it anyway.

Ken Gee: Oh, lots of times. I mean, hey, even there's sometimes I come to coffee with the Chamber and you know, I've, I've got the jitters when I look out at the group.

But you know, what really helps is being prepared, you know, and, and you hit on that, which is repetition because I think once you've done something enough times, it's second nature to you, right? It's like an involuntary muscle. You're, you just know what you're gonna be doing and it's second nature to you.

Maybe you don't even think it through. I was just saying to somebody the other day about, you know, calling horse races, right? Like, I really notice, and it's a seasonal, it's seasonal works. And when I call horse races, you know, and I'm, I'm in the groove and I can think very fast and have the words come out of my mouth as quickly as I'm seeing the race.

What I really notice about myself when I really have been practicing is that or am doing the races right in the middle of the season, is that sometimes things will even come outta my mouth. And I don't even remember thinking that I was gonna say that. Wow. And which is really kind of scary because thankfully I haven't said anything wrong I hope to anybody but. You know, cuz Amin, my boss at the chamber, he says he says, you've got some great one-liners. And I think, I don't even remember coming up with that one-liner. I just, it just came out. But it's that point about when you do things over and over with repetition you know, it's second nature to you and that also helps you get rid of the jitters.

It's just like cold calling, right? Like mm-hmm. I've watched so many people come and go through sales that I've worked with, that they dance around the phone, they're scared to pick it up. They just got rejected on the phone and that's really turned them off wanting to do the next call. But you know, it's second nature to me when I pick up the phone to call people.

Right. It's just next, next, next. Yeah. And that's just because that's just happened through repetition.

Kelly Kennedy: You know what else I find too, Ken, is that, especially with cold calling, is that you can get into a groove, but you will never get into that groove unless you pick up that phone and you make the first three calls.

Right. What I've always found is that, On days that I need to make cold calls, I just kind of shut off everything and I just start and, and regardless of how I'm feeling about it, cause obviously most of us challenge or or struggle with cold calls, most of us don't like doing cold calls, but the funny thing about cold calls is once you get started in it, you can get into a bit of a flow, and when you're in that flow, you can go from making three or four more challenging cold calls to next thing you know, you made 20, 30 cold calls and you're still, you're still grooving.

The key is always just to take that first step. It's like, it's like. Any big journey. It doesn't matter whether you're climbing Everest or you're walking to 7-Eleven, it all starts with a single step. And cold calls are that same thing. They all start with one. And from there you can move your way up and it doesn't take very long.

Next thing you know, you're at 15, 20.

Ken Gee: Oh. And you have to understand two why people are rejecting you on the phone, right? Because I think that's the biggest downer when you're, you're trying to get into a groove and the first one just blows you out of the water. Sure. You know, they're not rejecting you personally as a person.

They're just rejecting that you're, you are trying to, you know, their, your product or service that you've got. So you learn to do that. But you know what a great way to get over the jitters for cold calling is right. Go get a job as a telemarketer, because I, I've tried that before. Yeah. And actually I was actually pretty good at it.

I only did it for a short period of time, a long time ago when I, I, you know, I've always had something as a side hustle to, to make some extra cash. And, you know, I did that for a number of months and Boy, you sure learn a lot Yeah. About yourself and you sure learn a lot about the psychology of the call and all that kind of stuff when you, when you do that for a while.

So there are good telemarketers, there are professional phone sales people, and it's, again, it's just a skill that you gotta pick up on and, and and, and repetition, right. You've gotta learn the the ins and outs of that.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. I can't imagine that must have been pretty challenging. You know, I mean, I, I, I've definitely based my, my career on business development in a, in a relationship generation standpoint.

So I can't imagine how challenging it must be to essentially create a rapport with somebody and sell them something in a span of about 15 minutes.

Ken Gee: Well, right. So that's like one of the ultimate, ultimate accomplishments is to be able to do that, to develop relationships quickly, because isn't that really what sales is all about?

You know, I think there's this misconception that sales is about, oh, you're a great talker. You know, you've got the gift of gab. I always hear that one, right? Mm-hmm. Great salespeople have the gift of gab and there's nothing further from the truth. I find the, the best salespeople, best people in BizDev are the ones that are great listeners.

Yes. And the ones that can develop instant relationships with people. Relating with people. Cuz I mean, that's what, that's how you develop long-term business relationships.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, absolutely. I totally understand what you're saying because like I found, and you know, I mean, I've said this before when I was kind of giving tips on meetings and I said I got really good at, at, at, at business development and sales when I learned to shut up.

And I mean that in the nicest, most kind way. But you can, you can talk way too much and a lot of the times, the best thing that you can be doing is just ask a question and let somebody talk because most of the time if they're talking, they're giving you all the hints as to what they need anyway. So it makes your job a thousand percent easier if you just ask the right questions and allow your customer to tell you what it is they need instead of you trying to tell them what they need.

Ken Gee: You know, one of, one of the greatest things I learned in sales, not just in sales, but in relationships through all of the books and all the tapes and all the recordings that I've listened to for personal development, I can't, I think it was Zig Ziegler said this, he said, everybody walks around with a sign on their head that says, make me feel important.

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Right? Absolutely. And that's the key to developing relationships. People don't care what you know, but they know you care.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. No, that's, that's great advice. And, and the other side too, right? It's like, what's the most important thing to anybody? Their name. Make sure you're using people's name right?

Like, don't, don't just say, Hey, guy over there. You know, like, try to, try to remember, because people's names are so important and so, yeah, a hundred percent. You need to make people feel special. You need to take that, take the time to ask good questions. Take the time to be prepared, and that's how you're gonna be successful in your conversations with people.

And yeah, it takes a little bit of time. Like I, you know, before this meeting today, I, I always sit down about a half an hour early. Ken and I, I review, I review as much information on you as I can find. Why? Because cuz I want to know about you. I genuinely want to know. And the only way that I can know about you is to have a general idea of who you are so that I can, I can probe in and learn more.

You know what I mean?

Ken Gee: Yeah. And when you do that, you, you make some great friends because you learn some really cool things about people. Absolutely.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. I talk about this quite a bit in the show when I'm kind of discussing meetings. And you know, the reality is I know a lot of people, they show up to their meetings so unprepared, and I, and I, and I kind of harp on them a little bit because the reality is before you should always show up to your meeting, first off, 20 to 30 minutes early, especially if it's a lunch, you should have already reviewed all the information on the person you're gonna meet with because you don't want to be the unprepared one.

You need to make life as easy as possible for your client, especially if you're the one who asked for that meeting. You need to do the homework. You need to do that upfront. And I know so many salespeople just show up. They don't know anything. They haven't researched the company. They know nothing about the person they're meeting with, and then they just look silly.

They look unprepared, and it doesn't reflect well on you or your business. By just being a little bit more prepared, just by giving yourself that extra 20 minutes to sit down, do a little bit of deep digging, think about some questions you might wanna ask them, you're gonna look a thousand percent more professional and you're going to be a thousand percent more effective in creating that relationship.

Ken Gee: Absolutely. You betcha.

Kelly Kennedy: So Ken, can we, can we move on? Like, you know, you've been, I you've been an entrepreneur for a long time, so I I, I kinda love having you on here because first off, you're actually the first business development person. I've also had, you're, you're kind of like a triple whammy, right?

You got, you got the business development skills, you got the entrepreneurial skills, and you can teach people about the benefits of, of a Chamber of Commerce, of, of the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce specifically. So I'm really, really thrilled to have you on, and I definitely wanna just kind of chat. I do wanna chat about your entrepreneurial career.

Can you, was was Transitions Moving & Logistics, one of the first companies that you founded?

Ken Gee: It was one of the first, yes. I mean, in terms of entrepreneurial journey, I mean, it depends on what you, what you consider that, right? Like I, one of the icebreakers I had at a virtual coffee at the chamber recently, I asked everybody, what was your first money making venture in your life?

And everybody came up with the, well, you know, I had a paper route and I did all this and it was great. Yeah, mine was I remember in Element, again, elementary school, right? Mine was the guy who led the, the popcorn sales because we needed to have a fundraiser for playground stuff. So I remember spending hours sitting there with the, the, in the old days with those electric popcorn poppers sitting there popping bags of popcorn.

And when the parents came to pick up their kids selling 'em and making all this money so that we could do this fundraiser, that was my earliest recollection of entrepreneurialism. But, you know, again You know, when you're in broadcasting, I think you're always looking for a side hustle. Mm-hmm. And I think really when I was venturing out in that in high school years, that's when I really started to learn that, you know, you couldn't rely on one thing.

You needed to do a number of things, have a number of income streams, and so to diversify or have other side hustles was really the thing. So that's really what drove me to, to be an entrepreneur. And I'm always open to looking at opportunities because, you know, why limit yourself? You, you probably have some skills that you can leverage to do something else in the business world.

So, you know transitions was probably the, the major venture that I got into. And that was all out of necessity. It wasn't because I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but, you know, I I was doing corporate sales for an employer. Our employer came in you know, the things, there were some signs that they were going to close our branch.

And I remember saying to the owner of the business, Hey, look, you know, we've all been pretty dedicated employees here. If you're gonna close this branch, can you let us know so we can go look for other jobs? Because we work pretty hard for you guys. No, no, you guys are fine. The following weekend on Family Day, they came and gave us our pink slips.

Oh, man. And told us we were all laid off. So on a Monday, I got my pink slip, and by the Friday, Hey baby, we're starting a business and at the time I was working for a moving company and I said, you know what? I, I'm not gonna go look for another job. I need to start a business cause I need to pay the bills.

So, you know, I wish it was much more glamorous circumstances. There was a buildup to doing it, but it was like, nope, I've gotta take over this business territory that I've built and the employer doesn't wanna do it anymore. So I guess I'll take it over and start a company. So you know, literally in that Friday I had been in to see an accountant and a lawyer to get the business set up.

And Monday I was already doing business. We were doing moves and was scariest time of my life because Friday afternoon we had committed to taking over this business. And it was great that I could commit to doing office moving for people considering I had no trucks, no equipment, no labor. Wow.

Friday afternoon, I'm freaking out. But, you know, pulled it all together, called the guys that got laid off and said, let's go do some moves. You go get some trucks. You, you go get some equipment. I've got the business. Let's go work together and get it going. And you know, that's the rest is history. So entrepreneur.

Yeah. I guess by accident maybe.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. But you know what, like even with Capital, even, even with my business, I, it was relatively similar. It was very similar circumstances. Like we were in the middle of Covid and I'd worked for a company for, at that point, it was a little over nine years. And, you know, me and my boss, we were pretty close.

We, we had, I was pretty much second in command of that company and we kind of sat down and he said, Kelly, like, you know, like you're great at what you do, but the reality is we don't know what things look like in January. And I think you need to have another plan. At the time I had an idea, like I definitely had the idea that I wanted to have a Business Development firm at one point.

But you know, you know how it is when you work somewhere for a long time and you get comfortable and complacent. And I was good. I was good. Just, just continue working. But definitely jumpstarted, oh crap. I need to start thinking real quick and kind of looked into what opportunities there were, looked at registering business name and that sort of thing.

And yeah, like the next month I essentially took a layoff, which, which thankfully came with with some money. And I just took that money, reinvested it immediately in starting Capital and the rest is history. It totally worked out, but I remember same as you being absolutely shit scared, right? To say the least.

Yeah. Yeah. Because it's like there's no guarantees, right? Like the funny thing is guys, and, and I'm speaking to my people who are out there working right now who maybe have the idea of starting your own business, but you're thinking, well, yeah, but like I'm safe in my business guys. There's no guarantees either way.

And I know it can be hard to see when you're, when you're in an employment position, but the reality is your employment position can end at any time for any reason. Just the same as as the risk of starting a business. So if you're on the fence and that's your reason, just to understand. You're, you know what I mean?

You're in danger either way, either way. And at least if you take that step into entrepreneurship, you take that risk. The pride you will feel inside about doing something on your own is so much greater than you can get when you're working in, in, in an employment position, especially if it's something you've done for a long time.

There's definitely just something about starting your own business that is incredibly powerful.

Ken Gee: Absolutely. I think, you know, part of me when I got into it was a, a challenge for myself. I thought, you know, this, I wanna be able to, to prove to myself that I can do this, right. So, yeah, I had to do it out of necessity, but it was also something personally that I wanted to do to see if I could do it. Right?

Absolutely. And now that I, I know what it takes to run a business. I think that's why when I talk about open opportunities and looking, because I think everybody has side hustles these days. I mean, I, I really enjoy the work that I do at the Chamber. It's, it's turned out to be right up my alley because Absolutely.

You know, I never, I realized that I had such a passion for business and helping other people with their businesses have a great time working with Amin Samji as well. We, we have such laughs all the time talking about ideas, some things that we wanna do to help members. We have a lot of fun doing it.

I think though there's always room for us to challenge ourselves with other things. And if that's entrepreneurship. Why not give it a go? You know, if, if you do it right, maybe there's not a lot to lose.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. And, and I, I'm a firm believer that you don't need to go into debt to start a business. You know, like absolutely all businesses take a little bit of money to start, but let's get real.

You can, you can found a business for a couple thousand dollars. You really can. And, and don't let the cost idea hold you back. You know, I really want to inspire entrepreneurs with this podcast. Ken, you know, at the end of the day, I remember how scary it is to take that leap, but I also, like the reward was so much greater.

It was so much greater, both personally and financially. I don't, I can, you know what I mean? I look back now and I'm like, why the heck didn't I do this sooner? And so, like, the goal with this podcast is to inspire people to take that leap because entrepreneurship is so rewarding and yeah, it's scary, but what isn't?

Come on, what, what, what thing in your life that was worthwhile wasn't a little bit scary at first.

Ken Gee: Yeah. And I think in terms of entrepreneurship and other things that people do, like, you know, it depends what you call, you know, entrepreneurship or starting a business. Maybe it's just, you know, the one-off project that you like doing for your neighbor.

Sure. Or doing some work with your friend. I mean, that's exploring entrepreneurship too, right. It doesn't mean that, you don't keep your nine to five, you don't do your other things. But doing other things on the side, sometimes they're fun, like you learn a lot about yourself doing them. Right.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely.

So when you when you started Transitions Moving, can you tell me maybe some of the initial fears that you had when you started it and how you were able to personally overcome them?

Ken Gee: Well, I think the biggest fear was, am I enough? Mm-hmm. Can I do this? You know, and I, I think that it's kind of like and then also am I gonna be good enough?

Like, am I like those guys that have existing businesses right now who are killing it and are making a full-time living at it? Like, will I be able to make enough money to survive? Will I lose a lot of money? You know, and I, and I think those are things that are, are natural. I think those are things that, that people should be cognizant of because yeah, you're in it to make money. Cuz after all, it is a business no matter what you do. So I think overcoming it really is about, again, going back to being intentional and having a game plan. You know I've had, I've had people sometimes ask me when we get them started up as, as new members, they say, well, you know, I, I come to these networking meetings like, what am I supposed to do?

Mm mm-hmm. Like, right. And I mean, what do you mean what are you supposed to do? Well, you know, I come in and I just kind of bounce from person to person to person. And you know, if I talk to 10 people one time and then another time I come, I talk to one person, like, what should I be doing? And, and, you know, my response is, well, what is your goal this month?

Why are you, why are you in business? Well, what do you mean? Well, okay, well, how much money do you need to make? Yeah, well, what does that have to do with how many people I'm talking to? Well, you know, if you've got a revenue target, you have to meet. You obviously know what the average amount per sale is.

You have to achieve how many people, how many sales do you need to achieve this month to hit your revenue goal? Well, X number, well then you should be talking to at least that many number of people when you come to the networking meeting or when you're going out and doing sales calls. Like it all comes back to the hard numbers.

What amount of work do you need to do to achieve your goal this month? That's, that's being pretty intentional.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely. And. You know, this podcast is, is for those people, Ken. It really is. Because the reality is most of us start a business doing something that we are good at, right? Like it's like, you know, we have a skill, you know, whether that skill is organization, whether that skill is business development, whether that skill is whatever, you know, well, maybe you're a great welder, whatever your skill is, you likely started a business based on that skill.

But now you have to learn a whole new set of skills. You have to learn a whole new set of marketing skills, personal marketing skills, business marketing skills, business development. And those don't necessarily come natural. And it's not always easy to find that information. And I think a lot of people joining the Chamber are hoping that you can.

Do some of that work for them, but like really I think the job of the Chamber is to just give them opportunities, which my gosh, you know, the, the Coffee with the Chamber that you host is probably the biggest networking event in the city that I've ever seen. I I, I'm not gonna lie, I walked into that room last week.

Well, there's a couple, there's a couple people come to that. Holy cow. I walked into that room last week and I was like, wow. Like I can't believe I, I, I can't believe like, you know, post covid that that is the room of people that you guys are drawing. It is impressive. And all I can say guys, is that if you are in the Edmonton area, this is an event you need to go to.

There's no question there will be a Capital Representative at every one of these meetings going forward. I've been so busy, Ken, I feel bad. I wanted to go for a long time and I just haven't been able to, cause I've been working contracts, doing the podcast and stuff, but I finally got an opportunity last week to go.

And it blew my mind. That event that you guys have organized is unbelievable. And like I said, if you guys are in Edmonton, you have to check out a Coffee with the Chamber. It is, it is amazing.

Ken Gee: I'm glad that, that you were able to come. Thanks so much for that. You know we're really proud of that event because I looked at, look at where that started last summer, when I first started with the Chamber.

You know, one of the things that Amin and I did when we first even went through the interview process, he, he told me about some of the, the things that he wanted to achieve for the chamber. Right away. And one of them was, you know, we need to create a connection place for our members so that they can connect and network in person and make those personal relationships.

Because I don't know about you, Kelly, but I've never signed a big deal with a a company over a teams call or over the phone. Nope. You know, that's all right. It's all in person. So we set out intentionally to build a networking event that so many people would come out to that we would create a community that, that people could come, make a lot of contact.

So, you know, yeah, it's great that we have big numbers coming out to it, but that's not, I mean, that's, that's a bragging thing. If, if that's, that's how we treated that. But really what we want to do is just create so many opportunities in the numbers of people that we have at the event. Yeah. You can talk to, you can kind of cherry pick who you want to talk to because there's so many different kinds of industries represented there.

So by having big numbers, I think we, we offer that to to the Edmonton business community is to Hey, you wanna make a lot of contacts in a short period of time. This is the place you do it. You invest an hour and a half, once a month, and there they are, you know, now go to it.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely. Like I was gonna say, the only challenge with that is there's so many people like there, you know, I mean, I'm not sure what the numbers is.

I'm sure you know, do you know how many people were at that event, Ken?

Ken Gee: Yeah. We were just shy of 300 for the second month in a row. There was a few. It was, there's a few people.

Kelly Kennedy: It was it was pretty unbelievable. I was gonna say, like the only challenge with that is, is that you can't talk to 300 people in an hour and a half.

It would be really cool if there was a way that we could find a way to like single it down to maybe like industries or something like that. I, I don't know how you do it, but it, it was, it was unbelievable. It, I, I feel like there's so much opportunity there. It's just finding a way to organize it in a way that you could actually talk to the people you needed to talk to.

Ken Gee: Oh yeah, for sure. And, you know we, we tried a couple of meetings ago by asking for a show of hands, just general asking for general groups of of occupation, right. For people to identify themselves. Yeah. I think I asked five diff, five or six different industry groups, and soon realized that though it was way, way more than five or six categories that some people fit into.

Yeah. So, yeah. That's well we're still trying to figure that one out.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no kidding. No kidding. It even like, I was thinking like even like a digital list, like just some type of thing that we could reference to after. Maybe like a, maybe there's a way, like a QR code that we could enter in our data and compile a list of people for you.

Something like that, that would just be easier to kind of, for members to reach out to other members after. Cause I know it's like the opportunity there is gigantic, but. The amount of people there is also gigantic.

Ken Gee: Yeah, yeah. Well, the, the issue that we run into is like we, you know, we can't share names, right?

Sure. Because of privacy issues. But I think there's nothing stopping from people from being on LinkedIn and just saying, Hey, I was at the meeting. Yeah. Just to let other chamber members know that, that you were there. And then I'm sure people can DM you on, on LinkedIn to to connect and everything like that.

But you know what, I'm, I'm not opposed to, I'm not opposed to people calling me and saying, Hey, I'm, I'm coming out to the meeting tomorrow. Can you tell me what kind of industry groups will be there? And, you know, in a general way, I can kind of tell you like, yeah, there's gonna be some people from this industry, people from this industry.

And you know, if that helps you identify the kind of people that you're looking for, then you know, I'm, I'm glad to do that. And also too you know, we often, that's the whole point of, of connection, engagement, right? We want you to meet other Chamber members, so the more you come out to. Coffee with the Chamber live.

Hey, you missed them this meeting, but gives you another reason to come back next time, right? Yeah, absolutely. Maybe you can meet some of those people the next time. So

Kelly Kennedy: it's it's an amazing event, Ken. Yeah, you guys have absolutely killed it. That is one of the most impressive networking events I think I've ever been to.

And I can say that with, you know, like a 15 year career in sales and business development. That is one of the most impressive networking events I think I've ever seen. So, congratulations.

Ken Gee: Well, thanks so much. Thanks so much. That's, you know, that's, that's due in large part to the vision of of Amin putting that together and, and us working together to get that, that done for our members.

So yeah, we're glad to do that.

Kelly Kennedy: So how, how did you get involved in the chamber? Can you tell me that story? Like how did you end up in the chamber?

Ken Gee: Well, so you know, during I was calling horse races, that was my, my new career. Mm-hmm. Just before the lockdown. And then boom, lockdown happens and as many people experienced immediately, you were not gonna be working.

And so, you know, I, I returned to my entrepreneurial roots and as well as to my broadcasting roots. And I ended up going back into doing media and doing some production work becoming a voiceover artist. And, and I still do voiceover work when it's requested. And you know, doing that through the lockdown was great.

But that's a, it's a tough world. You know, it's, it's extremely competitive and there's lots of work one day and not lots of work another day. And I thought, you know what, this is this is a great thing that I wanna keep as a side hustle, but I'm looking for a new challenge. And that's when a friend of a friend came through and said, you know, I know this guy at the chamber, his name is Amin, and he has an opportunity available.

You should talk to him about it. Not really sure what they're looking for, but you know, you're, you're, you've got some business experience, you should talk to him. So that's how it all started, a man. And I had a conversation very briefly about what he was looking for and I thought, well, this is kind of interesting.

This is I know I can do this. Like I have the skills to do this. It's not a problem. But never. I guess the lesson I learned from that is never limit yourself, right? Or never make judgements about something until you check it out. So we talked you know, a number of times and I was really impressed by what he was telling me, but what he was trying to achieve, it was just sounded really exciting.

Mm-hmm. So we met, I started there with the, with the basic job description that he had laid out for me. But you know, a few ideas here, a few ideas there. I liked some of the things he was telling me and I said, you know, I can do that, I can do that. And we started working together on things.

And the great thing about working in the membership department is, you know, we do have a. We, we'd look for new ways to engage with our members and create options and engagement opportunities for them. And so, Amin and I talked about some ideas and, you know, we started to click in terms of the chemistry of being able to work together to come up with great ideas for things for our members.

And the role has evolved into what it is today. So I'm a bit of a jack of all trades at the chamber. And. You know it's great to be able to to have that ability to do that within the membership team because we get to work on a lot of fun things together.

Kelly Kennedy: You're absolutely amazing at it, by the way.

When we met for the first time, I was like, I like this guy. I really like Ken. Like, I immediately liked you. You are really

Ken Gee: Millions. Millions wouldn't but some do.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, it was really, really good. And you know, I mean, I've been involved in ch in, I've only been involved in the Edmonton Chamber through my business now for two years, but I've been involved in the Edmonton Chamber for many, many, many years in other businesses, and mm-hmm.

I totally understand the benefits of, of a Chamber of Commerce, specifically the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce. You guys have been incredibly helpful in helping me make connections actually with the City of Edmonton specifically. For anybody who's trying to get into municipalities or you're doing business development for companies that work with municipalities, finding the right people in municipalities can be very, very challenging.

And I have found that reaching out to your local chamber, they already have all those connections and you guys were so helpful to get us to the supply chain of the city of Edmonton, and I was so thankful for that on behalf of one of my clients. But for the people who aren't currently involved either in the Edmonton Chamber, Ken, or, you know, I mean we're talking to people around the world with their local city chambers.

Can you maybe just go over some of the benefits of joining a, a local Chamber of Commerce.

Ken Gee: Sure. Absolutely. I mean, everybody knows that the Chamber of Commerce is a business group. It depends on which association you're a member of. I mean through my work career as an adult, I, I've always been part of a chamber, whether it was when I was off in my radio career or in other locations through the country.

But The Chamber of Commerce is mandated to promote and help local business for its members. And you know, I think each chamber is unique. I think the Edmonton Chamber is extremely unique because we work on a lot of things that a lot of business associations don't. We're a nonprofit, we're mandated to help promote business and showcase our membership, which we do a number of ways.

We do that through our website, which has member directory listings. Think of it as a virtual phone book listing where you can showcase your business and tell the story of, of what your business does. But we also have our events, right? So it's a way for you to connect and engage. I mean, what I was familiar with when I was with the Chamber of Commerce in a small town in BC was it was the monthly place where, where you went and had lunch with your business buddies and everybody knew each other.

Yeah. We're a little more than that at the Edmonton Chamber. You know, we host about 60 events a year. Lots of opportunities to connect and engage. Of course, we've got our three networking meetings a month, the after work networking meeting with city counselors, which is your pipeline to City Hall.

As you spoke of, if you're looking for connections within municipal government, we have our connections in provincial and federal government, but we have coffee with the chamber and we have two versions of those. We have the online version that we do once a month, and then of course we have the Monster Coffee with the Chamber Live, which is a great way to connect and engage in person.

Main thing is there's always decision makers. At coffee at the Chamber. So events, that's a big one. The other ways we help you connect and engage us through our social media channels we can talk about that a little bit more about helping members showcase their milestones and events. But the things that we do that make the Edmonton Chamber unique is that we, we provide two other things.

We provide policy and advocacy support. What does that mean? Well, when you're the voice of business, because you're the largest business association in the city, you have to know what your membership how they want you to represent them. Mm-hmm. So you have to have policy positions, and that's where our policy and advocacy team comes in.

They develop policy positions for our members, but they're also on the lookout for things in the community that are going to affect how our members do business. They're a huge resource and they work quietly. They're the unsung heroes of the chamber. They do all the, the legwork as far as formulating those policy positions and are there to speak on behalf of our members.

And then the third thing that we do that's unique at the Edmonton Chamber is continuing education, professional development. We don't do events just to do events. We respond to members' needs. Just like during the lockdown when our retailers couldn't get out to sell products face-to-face to their clients we identified that as a problem and brought in Shopify.

To help e-commerce some of those retail businesses so they could keep going during the lockdown. So some, those are some of the things that we're dedicated to helping our members with. The big one right now that we're working on is a mentorship program through the Chamber, where we do a bit of matchmaking.

If you are looking for some expertise or you can offer some expertise. We'd love to have you involved. We just graduated our first cohort of from the mentorship program a couple of months ago. You know, we had Natalia from Bountiful Markets who, you know, came, stepped forward and said, I wanna give back.

You know, I've been blessed with this success at the bountiful markets. How can I help some women entrepreneurs with their business? So she did, she led a cohort, graduated our, our first class a couple of months ago. And you know, that's just an example of being part of an association or a business community that in numbers has the ability to work together to promote businesses.

So I think that's what we do. That's, that's pretty unique at the Edmonton Chamber. You know, there's a lot of other groups that will help you out with networking specifically. They'll help you out with you know, making some connections. And those are great groups. They're fantastic groups that we work with.

We just, we do a little bit more than just networking, so. Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, for sure. And like with that mentorship program too, like we are talking to fellow chamber members, no question. What are you guys looking for specifically in that program?

Ken Gee: Well, I think from the point of view of being a mentor, we're looking for somebody that really has a passion for what they do and what they know and that they want to share their expertise.

You know, I, I, and I think that's that takes a really special person that wants to do that because we're all busy people, right? Yeah. And I think if you've got something that you feel that you can offer, let's have a conversation about it. Let's talk about what it is that that drives you. What you would like to do, what you would like to, to teach, and what you'd like to share as far as experiences.

If you're somebody that's looking for help or looking for expertise, you know, maybe it's not something our mentorship can offer, but maybe it is, maybe it's something very specific that you're looking. It's still, again, worth the conversation. Let's, let's talk about what it is you're looking for and you know, as opportunities pop up, we would definitely love to match you up with with whatever expertise that you can offer or that you're looking for.

Kelly Kennedy: Ken, does the Chamber offer like marketing opportunities or do you guys have any like paid marketing systems that you, you offer to members?

Ken Gee: Yeah, absolutely. Now, I, I don't know about you, but as an entrepreneur, I'm always looking for the outlets that are free. Like, yes, that was my, when I, when I had my business, it was kinda like, I don't wanna spend any money until I've exhausted all of the options that I have that are free.

And, you know, chamber memberships come with so many resources that when we do onboarding sessions, which I think is another thing that we, we do that's pretty unique at the Chamber, every new member has the opportunity to join me for an online onboarding session where I'll run through for half an hour, 45 minutes and show you online all of the resources that are available to you to showcase your business. So let's run through those. Let's figure out which of those resources work for you to help you showcase and tell the story about your business, whether that's through our resources or, or us helping you come up with a collaboration.

But yeah, we do have paid opportunities. We have our weekly newsletter that has a reach of 10,000 people a week. That's a lot. There's opportunities that you can advertise in there and as well our edmonton chamber.com webpage, 22,000 page views a month. Some great reach on there. What's really cool is sometimes I when I'm working with a member, they're looking for ways to showcase their business.

I'll Google them and not only will their page come up, their webpage come up, but their Edmonton Chamber member directory page shows up too. Oh, cool. I think that's pretty cool because it shows a little bit about the reach that we have through the, the chamber webpage in our member directory pages.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, for sure. And yeah, I remember like, that was like, the first thing I did when I joined the chamber is I set up my, set up my little directory page and yeah, it was a really good opportunity. It's very easy. So for any of you that are kind of, maybe a little bit a little bit worried about, about setting up a page like that, they do a really good job of making it simple to set up and join.

I think there was even like, some follow up to make sure that I'd done it right. So there was no challenges there, you know, I mean, your, your processes for onboarding new members was very fluid and very easy, Ken. And I had no issues with it. I don't think if you're listening to this and you're looking to join the Edmonton Chamber, you, I don't think you'll have any issues with it either.

Ken, I wanna touch a little bit on the business development side of the chamber. You know, I mean, you being in member relations, and mind you, my first connection with you was after I'd already joined, but are you also involved in encouraging new members to join?

Ken Gee: Absolutely. I mean, we are all, we all sell from time to time, right?

And it all depends on you know, everybody's role in the organization. We always say everybody sells. You say that in any kind of organization, but yes, I, I do work with people that are exploring membership. At the Edmonton Chamber. You know, what would I like to do is just present what is available and find out what people are looking for.

Cuz not every business is the same. Right. Some people are looking for different things. Some people, their focus is, Hey, we gotta get new sales. Other people's, it's, we wanna find a way to save some money. Other people's is I'm getting static from city hall over issues that I'm having with getting my business started up.

So everybody has a different need for why they wanna join the chamber. Mm-hmm. And I like to find out a little bit about that in the process. And if that's getting them set up with a membership, that's great. You know, sometimes we have people call and it's totally not what they, what they need. Right. So I guess what I do is I direct traffic for people that are considering membership at the Chamber, is this something that is good for you, that, that will help you?

Or is it something that maybe you need to explore another resource that I can refer you to before you, you explore membership with the chamber?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, for sure. Are there, are there specific Business development systems that you guys utilize at the Chamber. Obviously being the business development podcast, I always like to talk about how to market your organization and I think an organization like the Chamber.

Do you, do you guys have like specific business development systems that you guys are utilizing that have been very effective for you?

Ken Gee: Yeah. Well, you know, the really cool thing is when you have over 1800 members you've got a lot of built-in experts, right? Absolutely. You know, we're we're, we're like air traffic controllers.

We direct people around. So oftentimes we can have a conversation with somebody who has a need and then direct them to a member or a member group, you know, that is the industry that they need to speak with. But really what we have is you know, between our membership team, Amin, Myself and Joanne Link, we've got experience from having owned our own businesses.

Yeah. To be able to hear what people are telling us that they need and directing them. You know, again I don't wanna be the expert in business for the chamber. That's not my role there. My role is to hear what people need and then direct them to, you know, some people that are probably way better at those things than I am who are members of the Edmonton Chamber.

But I am glad to, to kick in a few things that, that, that I know, so, yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, for sure. Like, in, in your opinion, like you've been around a long time, you know, you're a serial entrepreneur, you've done lots of different business ventures. Make me sound old. That's, it's okay. You're experienced and you do a good job.

Much better. Thank you. But I guess, have there been, like, what has been the most effective marketing strategy that you have found in your time as an entrepreneur in your time, you know working in member relations when you were trying to market your company? Like, you know, I mean, I, I have my opinions.

But I always like to hear the opinions of, of, of my guests as to like, what, what in your world has been effective? Like, if you were to start a new business tomorrow and you had to market it, you had to attract people in your mind, what's the best money spent?

Ken Gee: People skills. Mm, mm-hmm. Learning how to work with people and develop relationships.

You can have the best trucks, you can have the best equipment, you can have the best whatever, and open the doors. No one's gonna know about your business and you're not gonna develop business. It's all about relationship building and how do you build relationships with people? You learn some people skills.

You learn how to engage with people. And those skills usually are not again, about, you know how to be a great speaker. It's all about listen. And how to pay attention to what people are telling you cues that they're giving you. If I would have to spend any money on anything, it would be about relationship building and learning about people, because I think that pays back in bunches.

You know, there's a difference between developing cold leads and warm leads for your business. Like, I don't know about you, but you know, I'm sometimes a bit of a lazy guy. I like to look for shortcuts. Here's one other thing I've learned. There's no shortcuts in success. I know, but one thing that I have learned is that, you know, I'd like to work smarter than work harder.

Absolutely. And You know, I see people sometimes spending tons of money on things that maybe don't require tons of money. Right. It's like I, I talked to one guy recently who's been spending a lot of time knocking on doors, handing out leaflets for his business, and he just can't figure out why it doesn't work and why he should come to a networking meeting.

Mm-hmm. And I said, well, you know, when you're knocking on doors, you're never gonna see these people. They don't know you. Right. That's a cold lead. And you'll go through far more numbers of people that you've met through cold leads than you will by coming to a networking meeting or saying hi to somebody that you're dealing with at a business or something.

Once you make an association there, that's a warm contact, and I think you have a lot more success with those warm leads versus cold leads. So relationship building so that you can develop warm leads versus cold leads.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, you hit the nail on the head, no question. And I want to touch on that because I like to call it active versus passive marketing.

That's the way that I like to explain it. You're warm and cold leads, but the way that I kind of see it is, is like, you know, we live in a time that really, really advocates well, you should have a digital media strategy. You should be handing out leaflets. You should just drop brochures off at these buildings.

But the problem is, is that we're so bombarded with that advertisement and we have been for a decade. I think, I think mentally we don't even check into it. I think if you were leaving like a pamphlet at a business or you're leaving it at a door, it's literally just going straight in the garbage cuz people just are not receptive to that form of marketing.

You have to do both. You have to have a strategy that incorporates both an active and a passive strategy. So, like I said, I, I harp on it a lot. Like I use a crm. CRM is how I track everything. I, I recommend it to everybody doing any type of marketing. Regardless of your business type. But if you are, if you are essentially, in my mind, if you are giving somebody a pamphlet you should be taking their information, inputting it into a CRM so that you can follow up with them in a personable way to say, Hey, you know, I stopped by a drop by a pamphlet.

We do this. Would love to connect with you because you need to connect as a person. That's how you're gonna stand out from the crowd.

Ken Gee: Yeah. Oh, totally. I agree a hundred percent. Now, having said that, there are some pretty cool innovations in marketing these days. You know, from, I guess what, what I would call like a sort of an electronic form of a, of a brochure or leaflet or something, right?

There's some amazing stuff that these digital marketers are doing, and I'm always blown away by the ingenuity and some of the creativeness that they're doing. But, you know, in the end, if, even if those are, are cold ways to to draw people into a conversation, you know, still you have to have that conversation, right?

So you're still gonna be talking to somebody. It's not gonna be if you wanna buy just go here and click sale. Right? Like that?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Like, you know, there is a world for that. There really is. You know, it's in that B2C world when if your business is b2c, you can do your Instagram marketing, you can sell your products on there, you can do that kind of stuff.

But in my mind, if you were doing business to business or any kind of situation where there's gonna be repeat business or a relationship generated, there needs to be that personal aspect. There needs to be that person to person connection. And you do that by asking for a meeting and doing it in person.

And there's nothing better. There's truly nothing better. And I know it can be scary, and I know I'm talking to a lot of people that maybe are introverts. But you gotta, you gotta learn to flip that switch and you gotta go say hi, introduce yourself and be personable because that's how you're going to do very well.

That would just be my recommedation.

Ken Gee: I, I'm a big fan of the Office and I love that episode when Michael and Dwight are delivering gift baskets to everybody. And I'm thinking, that's really old school People still do that, which is great, but it's just, you know, classic example of when you are in sales and in business development, finding reasons to go out and meet people in person.

Right. Whether they're clicking online on the Dunder Mifflin website to buy their paper or not. Yeah. You still gotta go out and do the gift basket run.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely. I, you know what? I am a huge advocate of giving back to my clients, and I think that all companies should incorporate that. The reality is, is that it doesn't cost very much to go and give a little gift basket to your clients and say thank you.

And the reality is you wouldn't be in business without them. So, I also like to say that if you, if you aren't doing that, you should be doing that. It, it is just a nice thing to do. And most of us only have a handful of clients we're dealing with, especially in the smaller businesses anyway, so it's not a huge cost and it's really appreciated.

We do Christmas cards too. I love Christmas cards and we give them out every year and, and I, I give them out for all my clients too. I always recommend they do that. It's just, it absolutely. It's just a personable thing, right? It's something people do for other people that we care about. And if you look at it from that standpoint, we care about our clients, right.

So if you care about them, you should be out doing that. Absolutely. Well, Ken, this is, we're coming to the end of the show and it's been amazing. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Ken. It's, I can't tell you how happy I am that, that you were able to do this and thank you to the Chamber for allowing Ken to come on the show as well.

And I'd just like to close the show always, Ken by asking if there's any questions that I could answer for you before we before we move to the end.

Ken Gee: Well, first off, thanks so much for for inviting me to the show. I've listened to a number of your, your podcasts and have become a fan now of what you're doing.

You've, you've got a great way about you when you do these, and I think people feel extremely comfortable with you sharing their experiences and I think experiences from other people. They're always fun to listen to what other people have gone through with business and business advice. So, hats off to you.

Congratulations for running a great podcast. I, I would think that probably, you know, the, the question I would ask you is in terms of somebody who's interested in, in getting some, some help, some business advice, Capital business development. What, what would be the next step for somebody that's seeking out advice from a, an organization like yours?

What do they, what do they need to do and what are some of the things that you can help them with?

Kelly Kennedy: Oh, awesome. Well, thank you for asking that. And first off, thank you so much for appreciating the podcast. I really appreciate it and I appreciate you. So there's appreciation all the way around the board.

With Capital Business Development, what we are really great at is we essentially, we can review all of your current business development strategy, just make sure that it's kind of on point. What we typically do is we put a representative on, with your company, we do it in six month terms, and we'll review your, your marketing material.

We'll kind of look at what you've been doing, we'll review your goals, we'll review your target list, make sure that we have the right people, and then we can, we can essentially take over your complete business development program right down to the meetings. So we do absolutely everything from making those introductions, handling all the cold calls, right to the meeting scheduling.

We bring an expert from your business to kind of come into those meetings to sell your product. But we just do that rinse and repeat over and over again until you have a whole bunch of new clients. So that's, that's capital business development and obviously with the podcast, the goal here with the podcast is just to educate people and to give you inspiration and to let you know that there are tools that you can utilize.

There are things that you can do specifically that, that, yeah, while, while I'm one guy and while we have a small team at Capital Business Development, We're limited to how many people we can directly help with the podcast. I can help a world of people, and my goal with the podcast is to do just that.

Ken Gee: And, and I think you've achieved that.

I, I hope that people when they listen to this podcast realize that there's nothing that they can't talk to you about from a business point of view. Cause sometimes people that are looking for help with their business may be a little be, be a little embarrassed about sharing with you some of the things that they've been doing over and over and over that haven't been working for them.

And you as a person who are assessing what they're doing you make people feel very comfortable about talking about what they've been doing with their business, with their career. So I think that would. That would be something that I would see as, as a huge benefit to, to talking to someone like you about their businesses and having them assessed.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, there's no judgment here, Ken. You know, the reality is I've made all the mistakes myself too. So I have no judgment. If you guys have questions regarding your business or anything like that, you guys can reach out to me on LinkedIn. You can call me at the Capital Business Development website number.

You can get me kind of wherever you need to get me. You can get me with the podcast itself. We have podcast@capitalbd.ca. You can email any questions to me directly on there. I do answer all of them. And just another quick thing before we kind of close out, Ken we are coming up. This is gonna be when this episode drops.

It'll be the very last day for the Quill Podcast awards. We have nominated the Business Development podcast for this award. So if you do have a minute today and you are listening to this on the Sunday that it drops, please do go to the Quill Podcast Awards 2023 and nominate the Business Development podcast.

You can nominate us for any new podcast or any business related podcast category. And Ken, if if anybody needs to get ahold of you, if you wanna get ahold of Ken Gee at the Edmonton Chamber, how can people reach out to you?

Ken Gee: You can feel free to reach out to me directly, but probably it's better if you reach out to the membership department and we'll find the, the right person that can help you out with whatever you're looking for help with.

The email address is membership @edmontonchamber.com and of course you can call the chamber and ask for myself, or you can ask for Amin or Joanne if you're interested in finding out more about what membership entails with the Edmonton Chamber.

Kelly Kennedy: Awesome. Awesome. Thanks, Ken. You have been listening to episode 22.

This has been Ken Gee with the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce. Ken, you're a little local celebrity and it has been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you so much for coming.

Ken Gee: Oh, you're too much. Thank you, Kelly. Thank you for inviting me on.

Kelly Kennedy: Awesome. You've been listening to the Business Development Podcast.

This has been episode 22. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry, and founded his own business development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your Business Development Specialists. For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.